


We're Not in Smallville Anymore

by James_X



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7533310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/James_X/pseuds/James_X
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am brutal with summaries, but here goes...</p><p>ArrowVerse, meet Lois Lane.</p><p>"Lois Lane gets the answers."  That's the mantra Lois Lane has lived by since joining the world's largest newspaper, the Daily Planet, fresh out of college.  Hundreds of stories, thousands of adventures, and a Pulitzer Prize later, she stood proudly as the world's most revered journalist.</p><p>That is, until the day she woke up in an alley, confused and alone, with no idea where she was or how she'd gotten there.  The only thing she did know was that Lois Lane gets the answers, especially when the questions were about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ** Place this early in Arrow season 4.**
> 
> I have been out of the fic game for a long time, but I have been playing with this idea for a while. This first chapter is mostly a teaser to see the response this Lois gets (I do have multiple other chapters already completed, but that's neither here nor there). This Lois is not affiliated with any of the existing canon, but a mishmash of the 78 years worth of Lois in the DC Universe. The ArrowVerse folks are the ArrowVerse folks, though liberties will be taken I'm sure.
> 
> I've never posted on Ao3, so forgive me any formatting issues or the like. I've been writing online for longer than I should mention, but this is the first in about 9 years. The muses speak as they want to, evidently.
> 
> If you care to read any of my other work, http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/TripleX/toc.html. I've temporarily taken down the index page and left up just my index of works. Yes it's Angelfire, that's how long I've been at this.
> 
> Thanks for stomaching these notes, and hopefully the story as well! And of course, a hearty thank you for any comments or kudos!

Something stinks.

 

This is the first thought that comes to me as I wake up, lying in the dark, cold and wet, not quite sure of where I am; something stinks, and it stinks bad.  The odor is overwhelming, a mix of stale blood, burned motor oil and what, judging as I take in my surroundings, would be human tears.  I can see nothing but dumpsters and trash cans in front of me, a fire burning in the can farthest away from me.  I say a silent prayer of rescue to anything that can hear me as I push myself up, sliding through the puddle I woke up in to press my back tight against the wall behind me.

 

Delta Delta Phi Rule of Survival number 12:  When waking up in an alley, don’t leave your back exposed.

 

I never would’ve thought I’d need those rules after I left Raleigh, but here we are.

 

_ Where  _ we are is an entirely different situation.  From my surroundings, I would peg this lovely alley as something from SouthSide Metropolis.   _ Deep _ SouthSide Metropolis.  The smell slowly overwhelming my senses, though, doesn’t match.  There’s also that nagging feeling in the back of my head that something is very,  _ very _ wrong here.  Chock that up to my journalistic intuition.  

 

Or, to the fact that I woke up in a fucking puddle, in an alley I’d swear was decomposing around me.

 

I’m a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, I’m supposed to always have the answers.  “Lois Lane gets the answers”; it’s the fucking banner on the Planet’s website.  I should be able to assess this situation and know the who, what, when, where, why and how the fuck faster than it takes Clark to get me eggrolls from China.  This time, though, the only thing I knew for sure is the who, and that’s me.  

 

Me, Lois Lane.  

 

Me, Lois Joanne Lane, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the Daily Planet.  

 

Me, Lois Joanne Lane, Magna Cum Laude graduate of Raleigh College, and Delta Delta Phi president for three full terms.

 

Me, Lois Joanne Lane, scared shitless and alone, soaking wet in an alley in God knows where.  

 

So the who is well established, good.  The other four questions?  A mystery not even a coked out bender could explain.  I  _ definitely _ haven’t needed that excuse since I left Raleigh, so we can cross that off the list of explanations immediately.  Delta Delta Phi Rule of Survival number 4:  When you’re on show, say no to the blow.  Lois Lane is  _ always  _ on show.  That’s why she wouldn’t know a good time if it kicked her in the clam.  

 

She’s great at knowing a bad time, though, and this was the Stevie Awards.  At least then I had free Cristal and a Vera Wang dress, this time I had puddle water and...Dear God.   _ A mud covered Valentino.  You,  _ Lois Joanne Lane, need to get your shit together and stop being such a  _ bitch _ , because this was  _ completely  _ unacceptable.

 

I stood up and rubbed my hands over my arms, pushing off caked on mud and gravel.  In the reflection of  _ that fucking puddle _ I finally caught a glimpse of myself, and my internal scream would’ve been angry enough to wake Darkseid.  Covered in mud in my favorite Valentino, make-up smeared down both cheeks, hair looking freshly wind tunneled; I looked like a reject from a Mariah Carey drag show.  This was  _ beyond _ unacceptable, and someone would pay for this if it was the last thing I ever did.

 

_ Pay. _

 

I scanned my surroundings in my sudden epiphany, squinting in the darkness for a glimmer of hope to get me out of this Excedrin Headache Number Fuck You Lois I woke up in.  I held my breath as I looked, exhaling victoriously when I saw the metal clasp of my purse glint in the shadows; the shadows of  _ that fucking puddle _ .  I made a mental note to myself as I bent down to pick my purse out of the dirty water to find out  _ exactly _ where I was at this moment.  I would come back and set that puddle on fire, right after I made whoever put me here pay, and pay dearly.

 

Hurriedly, I opened my purse and dug inside, saying another silent prayer to any and all deities that I would find my fruit logoed lifeline inside.  Instead, going with the apparent theme of the day, I found nothing but my driver’s license.

 

Lois Joanne Lane

12005 Park Avenue 12th Floor #9

Metropolis.

 

The who is  _ well  _ established.  Just fucking  _ great _ .  The other four questions continued to nag worse than my mother on an average Sunday.   _ Why aren’t you married, Lois?  This type of thing doesn’t happen to married women.   _ Thanks for that oh-so-helpful newsflash, Inner Monologue Mom.  For the first time in my life, I wished I was living that baby death sentence, sipping a skinny hazelnut macchiato with Muffy and Buffy on the Real Housewives of Metropolis.  At least those bitches were  _ dry  _ right now _ ( _ probably in every fucking way, unless their pool boys were around.)  This day was an empty purse, heavy flow short of the worst day of my life, and I’ve spent entire days with Kathy Griffin.  Fucking Anderson Cooper, I still owe him for that.  Add one more to the list with  _ that fucking puddle,  _ and the reason behind it.

 

To do any of that, I first had to get myself out of this alley and find help (and a box of matches).  My silent prayers had already failed me multiple times today, but I was nothing if not in-a-bind devout.  I prayed over and over as I walked shakily toward the alley’s threshold for one thing:  Please let Clark be standing at the end of this alley, doused in Acqua Di Gio strong enough to cover up the smell of these decaying surroundings, ready to whisk me home to a shower, a bottle of riesling, and the paradise that was his body.

  
Of course things can’t be that easy.

 

No, instead of that one measly prayer being answered, I was shown with incontrovertible fact that In-A-Bind-God isn’t real; all I saw at the entrance of the alley was a burning can of garbage, and a half-destroyed Skyrise that showed me how fucked I really was.

 

**_PALMER TECHNOLOGIES_ **

  
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we're not in Smallville anymore.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You will have to read part one to understand ANYTHING going on here.

 

Who was I talking to?  There was no one here, and here was fucking  _ Starling City.   _ Oh, sorry,  _ Star City _ , the most useless rename in the history of history.  This place was a dank shithole, so broken down that even Janice Dickinson can look down on it.  The rename didn’t succeed at changing even the image of the city, let alone the DNA that made it up.  In my extensive world travels, this was the worst place in the world.  Keep in mind, Cleveland is also a place.

 

The last time I’d come here, Perry forced me onto assignment to cover Malcolm Merlyn’s failed attempt at leveling the city.  As I walked from what I’m  _ sure _ was Star City’s classiest alley, I couldn’t bring myself to disagree with his plan.  How could anyone look at this place and tell me it deserved to stay standing?  It was darker than any city I’d ever seen, it smelled like hot garbage on a wet dog, and it was more dangerous than wearing a mini skirt at a frat party.  No one in their right mind would  _ come _ here, let alone live here.  That begged the question of why the hell  _ I _ was here, and I still had no answer for that.

 

A good reporter always gets her story, though, and this reporter's story was "Why the hell am I here?"  Nothing made sense, but this wasn't the first time for that.  Since I'd joined the Planet, I'd been in more mindfucked situations than the US government.  This wasn't a time for panic.  This was a time for answers, and as far as I could see through Star City's suffocating darkness and blinding smog, my answers had to exist in Palmer Technologies. 

 

Palmer Technologies. Once run by the dreamy genius-and on one Cristal fueled evening, fantastically good fuck-Ray Palmer, now ran by The Evil Bitch Goddess, Felicity Smoak. Rumor has it that she killed him to gain control of the company; they never found the body, and his will had been recently changed to leave everything to her.  It was all incredibly suspect, but somehow she was cleared of all suspicion. But, the rumors persisted, I don't think she could ever shed those.

 

At least, not while I was a reporter with access to the largest newspaper on the planet, but that's neither here nor there.

 

What  _ was  _ here was  _ me, _ and  _ there  _ was  _ she,  _ though I was still unsure how here was  _ here _ .  What I was sure of, though, was that my clout should get me far up the skyscraper at Palmer Technologies.  Maybe even to The Bitch Goddess herself.  After all, I'm Fucking  _ Lois Lane _ .  I had the ear of the world, they could always use the good side of my quill and parchment.

 

Their most pressing need, I thought as I approached the skyrise, was the number of a good contractor.  At a walking glance, I'd guess that their top three floors were nothing more than a charred skeleton, an over toasted marshmallow of steel and shattered windows.  "Prototype explosion" was the official word that was given to one of the Planet's young minions; Perry didn't think "Exploding Billionaire" was a big enough headline to send the A squad.  As I saw it now, I was reminded how often Perry didn't know his ass from a hole in a skyrise.  This was a headline three floors of destruction big enough.  Felicity must've cooked up one hell of a "prototype explosion" to blow up three floors.  Poor Ray.  So much penis evaporated in one evil bitch's quest for power.

 

Still, I couldn't fault the thoroughness of it all.  Why blow up one floor and make it easier for the CSIs, when you can blow up three and leave a few thousand square feet of cinder and rubble for them to comb through?  I could always appreciate a woman with a plan, no matter how many dicks she destroyed along the way.

 

Vote Hillary 2016.

 

My own current plan was less together than the aforementioned ladies, but I was working on the fly, in a muddy Valentino, in the worst city in the world.  I could cut myself some slack given the circumstances.  What I couldn't do, I knew, was go into the lobby of a Fortune 500 company looking like a _reject_ from Star City's classiest alley.  I had to find a bathroom and at least scrub the mud from my face.  The clothes, those I could dismiss as a mishap with a puddle (that I will later set on fire).  But the face, the hands, the _hair_ (dear god, _the hair_ ), something had to be done before even a rent-a-cop night watchman wouldn't send me back onto the streets begging for change.

 

I can't even imagine the competition I'd have if that happened.  This was Star City, after all.

 

I wouldn't blame anyone for dismissing someone in my current state, however.  I bore a striking resemblance to Melania Trump before the marriage; some gutter hoochie sniffing around outside of a billionaire's building, looking for  _ any  _ way inside.  Fortunately, I've spent enough time in skyrises as a respectable working woman to know there is always a back way in, a nice secluded walk for the employees that aren't in ties and heels.  Somewhere the public can't see them.  I was proud of the fact that I lobbied to get that successfully eliminated at the Planet, but right now I was glad no one had done that here.  I was tired of looking like I was on the world's most epically backward walk of shame; sex in the  _ alley,  _ walk back to the  _ skyscraper,  _ not even the Kardashians did it that way (and they did it  _ every _ way.)  The back entrance would be my saving grace, and considering the rest of this night, I'd like to think I'd earned that.

 

I crept around the edge of the building, keeping close to the wall, eyes darting in every direction on a paranoid lookout.  If there was one thing General Lane had taught me, it was always be aware of your surroundings.  Delta Delta Phi had taught me a similar lesson, which was creep quietly on your walks of shame (rule #2, actually).  The last thing I needed was to get  _ caught  _ looking like this...

 

_ Thunk. _

 

Scratch that. The last thing I needed was an arrow whistling an inch from my face and embedding itself in the steel of the building beside me.

 

I screamed louder than the Black Canary could ever dream of and leapt backward.  With an audible crack, my  _ vintage shoes _ scolded the move and sent me directly onto my ass with a Valentino killing  _ rip _ .  I scurried quickly to press my back against the wall, calling upon rule number 12 yet again, even as my breath quickened and my pulse tried beating through my veins.  I looked around frantically for the shooter, a thousand different scenarios rushing through my mind, fast enough to make me dizzy.  Usually when I'm shot at, it's with guns, and at close range, and with an  _ man made of steel _ somehow always there to block it.  But here I was in Shithole, USA, alone in a  _ torn Valentino _ , cowering against a wall, and who knows where the fuck he was.  Nothing in Delta Delta Phi had ever prepared me for this.

 

"Lois?" I heard a deep voice boom from the shadows.

 

I sucked in a breath as I turned slowly to my left.  At first, I saw nothing but darkness, and silently cursed Star City and it's apparent  _ complete _ lack of streetlights.

 

Then, I realized my eyes were closed.  You’re doing great, Lo.

 

Slowly, I opened my eyes, and immediately felt my eyebrows lift off my forehead from the shock of what I saw.  I pushed myself to stand against the building as a man stepped from the shadows, easing a green hood back from his head.  He wore a black eye mask, but from the strong jawline and pursed lips I could see even in darkness, I would know that face anywhere.  I let go of a relieved breath I didn't know I was holding; Delta Delta Phi had prepared me for  _ this  _ freshman year.  I was never more glad I hadn’t learned the word “not tonight” until after I graduated.

 

Maybe In-a-Bind God  _ is  _ real.

 

"Oliver?" I asked softly, my voice thick with relief as I stepped toward him.  "Thank God..."

 

He stepped back swiftly, and before I could blink he had a bow cocked and an arrow pointed straight at me.  "You're supposed to be dead."

 

You know what, In-a-Bind God?  Fuck you.

 


End file.
